Tokyo Godfathers is the story of three 'bums' and an almost supernaturally lucky baby. it has obvious parallels with the Western story of the three wise men and Jesus, but in this case Jesus is a girl. The bums are also far from wise but are, however, totally dedicated to the plight of the infant they find one evening, abandoned in the rubbish heap. The film follows their quest to reunite parents and child.What lifts this film into magical territory is that the lives of each of these homeless people would make personal day-to-day survival for most of us testing enough, without having to consider the continual needs of a baby. But in the end, this quest is what binds them together and gives each of their lives some meaning. Their personal stories unravel and are explained individually through flashbacks and chance encounters. Although the story is often carried along by inexplicable coincidence, it is tightly plotted and does not suffer from clunky dialogue or too much sentimentality (as can sometimes negatively affect Japanese films in my experience) -- in fact, the dialogue is superb throughout and often very funny.The music and drawing style are wonderful and the life of early 21st Century Tokyo is perfectly captured in the cityscape. The cold and often snowy plazas, streets, alleys and graveyards make for a fittingly inhospitable backdrop, which is at the same time imbued with a serene beauty. Also, the complete history of Japanese art seems to have been injected into the face of homeless transvestite, Hana, whose sudden and dramatic emotional outbursts are some of the highlights of the film. This is one of my absolute favourite films to watch around Christmas time and has my highest recommendation as an antidote to the usual CGI-heavy stuff that seems to be available these days. It has everything that makes a good adventure story, and depth and detail enough to reward re-watching. I've seen it three times now and it gets better every time.

I've had to work on Christmas day four times in five years. So you can imagine that while I'm totally and advocate for merriment and good will towards man, I do have a bit of a humbug up my butt when it comes to the season. Your memories of Christmas might entail opening presents by the tree, mine has to deal with you and your family in the afternoon, trying to find the best combination of food items that will keep your kids happy and your wallet full (can't happen by the way). Then as you leave, I have to clean up the mess. Yet "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is still a beautiful song and there are plenty of movies that warm the cockles of my heart when the holidays come around.I can go through the gambit of classic holiday films, each of which conjures memories. One of the few traditions my family had was watching A Christmas Story (1983) on Christmas Day. While many appreciate or rather celebrate holiday snark with neo-classics like Bad Santa (2003), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989) is still a staple of holiday cynicism for yours truly. And of course for unbridled Christmas spirit you can't go wrong with the occasionally corny Love Actually (2003) or the genuine Joyeux Noel (2005).I didn't think it would be possible to surprise when it came to Christmas films but I recently sat down to watch Tokyo Godfathers (2003) and had my inner pessimist silenced for a an hour an a half. The movie sets up our three protagonists: Gin, a cynical hard drinking loner, Hana, an interminably happy transvestite and Miyuki, a teenage runaway. All three live on the streets of Tokyo and scrounge up a living collecting bottles and making the rounds to the soup kitchens. On Christmas Eve while rummaging they find a baby in a garbage heap. Gin wants to go straight to the police while Hana wants to keep it. The three ultimately decide to find the parents and go on an adventure across the city involving crime syndicates, burlesque clubs and fateful coincidences.Throughout the night, we as the audience slowly discover the reasons for the trio's current state. They are lost souls redeemed by their mission and each must come face to face with their myriad of issues. We sympathize with their loneliness and revel in their joy when the mismatched heroes become a makeshift family. All while of course enjoying the arguments, the fights and the jests. It is after all an animated movie.The hand-drawn animation of Tokyo Godfathers is incredibly well detailed. The visage of a bustling city with so many moving parts is something to admire in a live action movie. In an animated movie, the detail is a downright miracle that likely took years, or an army of animators to make. The fact that principle story takes place in Tokyo's neon evenings creates a contemporary setting that is almost never seen in the works of Hayao Miyazaki who creates his own, new worlds instead of expanding the old. The effect is elating.In fact, outside of Hayao Miyazaki, I'm not too familiar with anime as a subgenre of animation. I am appreciative of their contributions to animation and storytelling in general and I applaud any cartoons that introduce adult themes. Still, the cultural differences are a bit to overcome when you consider Americans have a slightly different definition of spirits and a skewed impression of what's funny. Still there are very few anime movies or shows that I have seen and don't at least place value in.Tokyo Godfathers is in my opinion, a valuable cultural masterpiece. Despite adult subject matter, it is a luminous film for family audiences that has more to say about the good of human nature than say A Christmas Story, Bad Santa or even It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Unlike those films, which drown you in nostalgia or confounds with snark, Tokyo Godfather brings you into a bleak world to show you how much light there is if you only look.http://www.theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com

The most striking aspect of Satoshi Kon's well-regarded 2003 anime feature is the fact, that the script could have easily been a live action. In fact, the story may be hindered slightly by anime format and certainly derives no benefit from it. To be fair, Kon's animators do an excellent job of using broad kabuki facial expressions to express the various emotions the characters encounter during a wildly improbable set of Christmas Day events. They also render the dark complexity of the Tokyo underground and its forgotten homeless population (Japan's legendary low unemployment rate is helped by not including people without a permanent, legal address in the statistics) with a fearful realism. Kon's production team does render the plot-driven character development that unfolds frame by frame throughout the film with the pathos of a Tennessee Williams' play. So you can't fault the execution of the animation, it just seems unnecessary. Live action or anime, however, the story of two homeless men – one transgender – and a runaway who find a baby abandoned among some Tokyo garbage and their effort to unravel the mystery of its parentage plays as compellingly backwards as it does forwards. In the effort to return the baby to the rightful parents, both men are forced to confront their pasts and their own allegorical abandonments. While the plot twists defy even the best efforts at suspending disbelief, they are entertaining even if some allow the mechanics of the writing to show through. In short, see this satisfying tale for the compelling story even if you are not into Japanese anime and definitely don't wait for the inevitable American remake (Nathan Lane as "Uncle Bag", Abigail Breslin as Miyuki, etc.).

I will admit right at the start, I'm not a big fan of subtitled anime. I always prefer to watch with an English dub track, unless the dub is really bad. I prefer to watch what is happening on the screen rather than having to constantly flick between the picture and the words.For this reason, I put off watching Tokyo Godfathers for a long time. I had seen Satoshi Kon's other releases. I found Perfect Blue very uncomfortable to watch. Millennium Actress used clever storytelling but I felt a bit too distant from the story itself (I suspect this was because there were a lot of Japanese cultural and historical references in it). Then I found Paranoia Agent and thought it was excellent (despite the strange ending). In the end I bit the bullet and watched Tokyo Godfathers and wished I hadn't put it off for so long.The story may be a little unconventional, both for anime films and also Christmas films, but Kon makes it work. This film will certainly go on my "must watch at Christmas" list, along with Nightmare Before Christmas (another unconventional animated Christmas film).Some reviewers have criticised the number of coincidences that occur in the story, but personally I feel that the viewer can interpret this however they want to. If you believe in a higher power you can take the numerous references to 12-25 and the event that saves Hana as an indication that a higher power is pulling the strings. If you don't believe in such things, you can take it as serendipity or just a story with several happy endings.The film itself is a little different from Kon's other works. It doesn't try to blur the line between fantasy and reality (except for one short dream sequence). Despite the subject matter (three homeless people) it's actually a pretty happy film on the whole, with only a couple of slightly unpleasant scenes. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, it'll make you go "awww".I do still hope that one day this film will be re-released with an English dub track. But even with subtitles the dialogue moves slow enough that you can take in the film and the subtitles without feeling you're having to rush your reading or that you're missing some beautiful visuals.I am now eagerly awaiting seeing Kon's next film - Paprika.